How to Get Avid Work With XAVC S Clips Perfectly

Avid Media Composer is the one of the most widely used NLE for professional film and video editing. With Media Composer 7, videographers gain accelerated workflows, automated media management, and extending real-time production. While, it still can't support well for some certain video formats like the new codec XAVC S. Here we will talk about the tricks for using XAVC S in Avid Media Composer beautifully. If you have some XAVC S to Avid Media Composer 7/6/5/4 for editing, read on to get some clues.

XAVC-S has been designed as a partner compression codec to XAVC with a more tightly compressed video signal. The XAVC-S codec uses the .MP4 file wrapper defined by MPEG-4 Part 14 for its 4K, HD and proxy files. Although Sony have created a special AMA plug-in for AVID (PDZK-MA2), providing support for XAVC files in Avid Media Composer, it can't work sometimes. Via Google searching, you can find lots of issues about XAVC S codec in Avid MC:

"I am trying to work with files from the new Sony a7S into Avid Media Composer. The camera uses a flavor of MP4 that is called XAVC-S. I (and apparently others) have tried the traditional importing method -- and it's a no-go. We have also tried AMA using Sony's XAVC AMA plugin, however the plug-in does not seem to support XAVC-2 (or S-Log2 and S-Gamut for that matter)."

Actually, Avid uses DNxHD as a codec technology, engineered to create mastering-quality media at reduced file sizes, shattering the barriers to real-time productivity. Thus, if you want to edit XAVC S in Avid Media Composer smoothly, a possible solution is to convert XAVC S to DNxHD for Avid. It seemly requires 3rd party software to get the work done. Brorsoft Video Converter for Mac is one of the best choice.

Overall, the program is a professional yet easy-to-use XAVC to Avid converter. With it, you can convert Sony a7S, Sony AX100, AS100V and more recorded XAVC S videos to Avid Media Composer preferable DNxHD video without any quality loss. What's more, this XAVC converter can also transcode XAVC S clips for editing in Adobe Premiere Pro, Final Cut Pro, iMovie, etc flawlessly. The equivalent Windows version is Brorsoft Video Converter, which can encode XAVC files for Windows editing.

Transcode Sony XAVC S to DNxHD for Avid MC editing

Step 1. Install and launch XAVC S to DNxHD Converter, and then click "Add" button to load XAVC S files or directly drag the footage to the program.

Step 2. You just need to go to "Avid Media Composer -> DNxHD (*.mov)" as the best video format for editing XAVC S in Avid with good video quality.

Step 3. If the default settings do not fit you requirement, you can click "Settings" icon to and enter "Profile Settings" panel to adjust video size, bit rate, frame rate, sample rate and audio channels. For original 4K XAVC S files, if don't stick with 4K, you're suggested to download 4K to 1080p for easier editing.

Step 4. Finally hit the Convert button; it will encode XAVC S to DNxHD for Avid Media Composer 7/6/5/4 immediately. When the conversion process shows in 100%, you can get the resulted videos from output folder easily for easier editing in Avid MC.